St Peter’s Organ Works Overview - 6th June 2025
The St Peter’s roof was originally built in 1841. At some point in the last century, the St Peter’s roof was covered with asbestos insulation. As a result, the St Peter's roof collapse on 17th November 2022 damaged the organ and contaminated it with asbestos, rendering it unusable without significant health and safety risk to anyone inside the church.
Our insurers, EIG, paid us a settlement on the basis of having the organ cleaned professionally; the only outstanding part of the settlement was the portion of VAT on each invoice, which we would have to claim back from them after invoicing for each section of the work.
The SPBG PCC consulted with firms at the end of last year. This being a unique circumstance, the PPC opted to pay asbestos specialists (R + F Insulation) to train our organ specialist (Mander Organs) in how to clean asbestos in order to keep the entire organ.
Work commenced on Tuesday 6th May, with R + F Insulation’s team erecting scaffolding which meant around a quarter of St Peter’s nave is no longer available for rental or ministry. This was expected to last until the end of July (around 12 weeks).
On the same date, the asbestos training began for the team from Mander Organs (MO), finishing on Friday 9th May.
On Monday 12th May, the date they were due to start cleaning, a senior member of the MO team met with the MO Managing Director, Steve Bayley, and stated that the regulatory standard for “clean of asbestos” was essentially impossible for the team to reach, given the felt and other soft surface materials used internally in an organ, and advised that our deposit was returned. Steve Bayley reached out to Andrew Rixon, Churchwarden of SPBG, and informed him that they no longer wished to complete this project. On the same date, Rev. Philippa Cook reached out to Archdeacon Peter Farley-Moore to inform him of the change in plans.
On Wednesday 14th May, Andrew spoke to our loss adjuster, who confirmed that she believes we will still be able to reclaim VAT on the new removal works, and sent us written confirmation on Wednesday 21st May.
On Tuesday 20th May, Richard Rumsey from R + F inspected the organ and met with Adrian Mumford, the Diocese organ specialist. Adrian and Richard agreed that the organ should be removed, with only a few elements such as the ivory keys being cleaned and retained, given their value.
R + F have submitted a new quote for handling the removal of most of the organ by themselves, and cleaning the few parts that will remain, and have recommenced work with emergency faculty, granted by the Diocese. Part of the nave is still off-limits, affecting ministry, due to scaffolding in place.
Once the organ removal is complete, the PCC will meet again to decide on how to replace it.
Further information:
Correspondence with Steve Bayley, Mander Organs - outlines non-viability of organ cleaning project